Reply by TCCcabinetmaker

I was working in a shop, and the foreman would constantly get annoyed at me, because I’d tell him, you’re going to run into a problem here. I thought even his steps through, to know how mine interrelated with his. Problem was, about 99% of the time, I was right. He had a seriously over-aggressive production mentality, and didn’t like to see people thinking about what they were doing for more than five seconds….

However, no matter how long you’ve been doing things, you’re not going to forsee everything, there can be microfractures in old salvaged wood not visible to the eye that are going to shatter when cut, details that don’t line up in your head… When these things happen don’t panic, don’t assume it’s ruined, there are alot of guys out there that specialize in fixing mistakes, and the better you get at them, the less often you make them, there better you get. But even the most advanced master carpenters make mistakes, wether you see them or not.

-- The mark of a good carpenter is not how few mistakes he makes, but rather how well he fixes them.